The Bandit 6

Contents

The Bandit 6 comprise six Spanish fishing vessels. All of them are wanted by Interpol for piracy, human trafficking, flying a false flag, and 72 counts of poaching violations. The ships are the Thunder, the Kunlun, the Yongding, the Songhua, the Viking, and the longliner Perlon.

The goal of Operation Icefish is to create an international incident and shutdown these boats who have been coming to Antarctica to poach since the 1960s. On December 17, 2014 the Thunder was caught fishing illegally and lead Sea Shepherd on an 110 day manhunt which resulted in the sinking of the Thunder and the arrest of its crew. On February 2, 2015 The New Zealand Navy, Sea Shepherd, and The Australian Navy caught the Perlon, the Songhua, the Yongding, and the Kunlun fishing illegally in Antarctic waters and chased them out with all four vessels headed north.

In 2015 Songhua and Yongding were arrested in Africa after they pulled into port to offload their illegal catch. Captain Peter Hammarstedt who was in Africa at the time of the arrest photographed the ships as they docked and called the police when INTERPOL sent back word that these two matched a photo that was taken in Antarctica six months before. In May Perlon and a tugboat with a clamshell crane on a barge were arrested in Malaysia trying to sell their illegal catch and has been impounded as of June 2015. In September and October of 2015 the crews of Kunlun and Viking escaped from prison after bribing the Thai police and hijacked their own vessels from the impound yard of the Royal Thai Navy and since November of 2015 these vessels are at large and are headed to Antarctica to once again poach the toothfish out of existence. Sea Shepherd has dispatched the Steve Irwin to stop them.

On February 9, 2016 Kunlun docked in Senegal and tried to get past customs with a fake flag and name. Kunlun used the alias Asian Warrior and used Indonesia as it's port of call. Senegal was not fooled Kunlun used that name last time they docked here this false papers and a stolen bell lead to the arrest of the vessel. Senegal arrested Kunlun on the spot and Interpol seized its illegal catch which by this time was sent to Vietnam. Because of the work of Sea Shepherd all of the Bandit 6 have been placed on the Interpol Red List and if they make port they will get busted. With Viking still at large attention turns to arresting that vessel and ending this piracy once and for all.

On February 26, 2016 Sea Shepherd spotted Viking entering Indonesian waters in violation of a fisheries ban on these type of vessels. Viking pulled into the port of Java and was arrested by the coastguard. During the investigation millions of tons of illegally caught toothfish were on board along with a fake Indonesian Flag and false papers. The minister of fisheries Susi Pudjiastuti delivered her verdict at Viking's trial sentencing the vessel to death by sinking. On the morning of March 14, 2016 Viking was loaded with explosives and sunk along with it's illegal catch. With Operation Icefish over Sea Shepherd has cleaned the waters of Antarctica of these vessels and the Bandit 6 will never again prey on the lives of toothfish in the Southern Ocean.